After a long hiatus we’re back on the blog! What more fitting way to start off than with one of the very best and most classic cakes from our little kingdom? Of course I am talking about Danish strawberry cake with vanilla cream and chocolate. Honestly, I can’t come up with a single reason not to like this cake. Imagine this: a sweet cake base with a crunchy crust, a soft middle and a layer of rich dark chocolate. On top of this you add a smooth vanilla cream and finish off with a generous layer of fresh strawberries. Hungry to try? A Danish baker who fails to have one…
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Gravlax…gravad lax…gravet laks…gravlox…
Gravlax with dill. It can hardly get more Nordic. It’s a lunch classic throughout Scandinavia, but not surprisingly it has also become a popular delicacy around the world. It’s really very easy to make, and I promise you the homemade gravlax beats any good quality store bought gravlax you can find. It’s equally delicious for lunch and as a starter, or as an palatable buffet feature. The idea of preparing the fish in this manner goes back to the Middle Ages when fishermen in Scandinavia came up with this ingenious method for curing and fermenting salmon in order for it to keep longer yet still be fresh and edible while…
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Pickled mini onions
Pickled mini onions are a perfect little side dish for roasts, cheese boards, lunch, patés, sandwiches… The list goes on and on. They are so easy to make, and first time I made them I felt really stupid for having paid a lot of money for similar pickled onions in the stores. I started making these as a garnish for a our extravagant veal tenderloin dish, but found they are wonderful in so many other ways. Make them one or a couple of days in advance or on the same day you want to use them, either way, they’ll be yummy little extras. They’ll easily keep for at least two…
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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Last week we shared our recipe for brown Christmas spice cookies – Danish ‘brunkager’. Here’s another wonderful recipe for Christmas cookies, this time straight from my great grandmother Inger’s old recipe book. I guess most people are familiar with the Danish vanilla butter cookies that you can buy in typically blue tins, often with photos of famous Danish places on them. Whether these mass produces cookies leave a positive or negative impression of Danish baking on those who try them, is not for me to judge, but these homemade ones are definitely a much more interesting taste experience, and I think far more worth the calories. And they are super…
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Marvellous apple and macaroon muffins
Crunchy on the outside and moist and fluffy on the inside, these apple and macaroon muffins always satisfy my cake cravings. Like most muffins they are quick and easy to make, and a wonderful way to use apples. The recipe grew out of an old recipe for macaroon cakes that I found in one of my granny’s old food magazines, and since I have a general hankering for apple recipes, I thought, why not combine the two? I decided to make these again the other day because my eight-year-old son suddenly found that green apples, having been his favorite apples for as long as I can remember, were no longer…
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Spooky Halloween treats
These little sweet treats are very common in Denmark, the rest of Scandinavia and Germany, but I have yet to find a similar product in an English-speaking country. The classic version is with plain marshmallow filling covered in dark chocolate. But these are fun and different little spooky Halloween treats if you want to be the favorite place for the neighborhood kids to visit on Halloween. The version I made here is with lemon, but all sorts of flavors can be added to give the marshmallow the taste of your desire. The classic plain soft marshmallow with dark chocolate cover are also very delicious, and if you want to switch…
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Tea time apple and blackberry cake
This apple blackberry cake is inspired by a recipe from an Irish Pub cookbook I bought one time I visited Dublin. I bought the book for only 5 Euros, and it was well worth the money, because it is the cookbook in my collection that I have used the most. As I often do with recipes I come across, I’ve ended up making my own version of the cake with an added twist of blackberries. However, the blackberries can easily be left out, if you’re not a fan. I have often made this apple blackberry cake for when my mother-in-law comes over for tea, so for me it is a…
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Rich Father’s Day chocolate beet cake
What to make for Dad on Father’s Day? Well, cake of course! Here’s the perfect Father’s Day chocolate cake to pamper all the great dads out there, and the best thing is, it’s big enough for sharing. This rich and scrumptious Father’s Day chocolate cake is made with lots of chocolate and cocoa, yummy cream cheese frosting and crunchy salty almonds on top. I love a good carrot cake, and I find that using veggies in cakes adds an interesting complexity in taste as well as a natural moisture that keeps the cake from going dry. Therefore we’ve taken this chocolate cake a notch further and added a bit of…
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Pan + cakes + lemon = Best pancakes ever
So you thought you already knew the best recipe for pancakes? I can tell you now, you don’t. Unless, that is, you’ve ever swung by my mom’s house in Denmark and nicked her recipe. These pancakes not only look, smell and taste heavenly, they also have a medicinal effect. I figured this since every time I can remember having bumped my knee or fallen off the bike as a kid, my mom’s pancakes would make all pain go away. You might argue that this is not sufficient evidence to claim that a pancake has healing powers, but it works on my own kids too. I usually serve these flat delights…
